Ziegfeld Theatre to close

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - The Ziegfeld Theatre, the famous single-screen cinema in Midtown Manhattan, is closing. The landlord didn't renew the lease with the theater operator.

The movie theater opened in 1969 and is the last large-capacity single-screen theater in New York.  It has 1,131 seats split between an orchestra section and a balcony in the back.

The theater has been used for numerous premieres including the 1977 opening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Woody Allen's Manhattan in 1979.

It is currently showing the latest movie in the Star Wars franchise four times a day.

The landlord intends to renovate the theater into a massive ballroom and event space, according to reports.  The renovated space, at 141 W. 54th St., is set to open in 2017.